Wednesday, October 24, 2012

I just can't get enough of 16mm films! The simple joy of sitting in your classroom on a Friday afternoon watching films so that your teacher can take a break. The click, click, click of the projector, or getting to be the lucky kid who gets to load or rewind the film, good times!

This film stars the SAN DIEGO Chicken! It's called, "Chickenpower, A Fowl Look at Economics". Basically the film is trying to convince us that it is a good thing that gas and energy prices have gone up! Yeah right! This is the late 70's when gas prices tripled. They say that now that prices have gone up we will learn to conserve gas and energy. Cut to over 30 years later and we are still working on it.

The San Diego Chicken has his own radio show! Who knew? I didn't think he talked.

When the Chicken goes to the store and can't find his favorite bird seed, and he is outraged!

Can you believe how much it costs to power the Chickenmobile? The San Diego Chicken must find a better way to get to the ball park.

He could try the bus, but the fans will mob him!

He could try hitch hiking, but it's dangerous! The driver is eating a bucket of Chicken! YIKES!

He could make some new friends by hopping on the back of a Chicken truck.

Energy efficient modes of transportation took the Chicken too long to get to the field. The game is already over and the San Diego Chicken gets a stern talking to by the owner of the team!

The San Diego Chicken get a scooter to save money and get to the game on time!

But, at home the electric and gas bill is too high also!

So, the San Diego Chicken goes out and buys an Energy Saving Wood Stove to warm the coop.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

I woke up one morning this summer with this great idea in my head for a Pac Man tombstone. I wrote it down right away, because I always forget my morning inspirations.

In my hometown there is a fantastic home haunt, called the Davis Graveyard. They work miracles with special effects in their front yard, to delight Halloween passers by. They put massive amounts of money and time into their yard each year. A few years back they started sharing their ideas in classes. We jumped into the first class, "Making Your Own Tombstone" and have been making a couple more each year. These babies are quite a bit of work, but so fun and a great creative outlet.

Here are a few others we have done.

Here Lies our Beloved Stan, his only sin was being a Yankee fan. 1918-2004 Red Sox fans would recognize that 1918 is the last year they won the World Series before the curse of the Babe. And 2004 is when the curse was broken. Maybe it was all Stan's fault!

This year we are having a little pet cemetery. This is Zero from Nightmare before Christmas.

"All that time thinking outside the box for this?" My friend Rocky came up with this clever idea, and I knew I wanted to be the shape of an old time coffin.